Fluid filters, reclaimers or purifiers of various constructions have been proposed for removing both solid and liquid contaminates from fluids. Since most oils and industrial fluids do not wear out once the solids, water or volatile contaminates are removed from the oil or fluid, once decontaminated, most oils and industrial fluids are suitable for continued use. While most proposed filters do not remove sulfuric acid, those filters which do remove sulfuric acids utilize Fullers Earth which will also remove additives.
One disadvantage associated with proposed reclaiming or purifying arrangements resides in the fact that, for example, such arrangements do not remove solid contaminates, water, acids, semi-solids, asphaultants, chlorides, salts, ammonia, and other volatile components from the oil or fluid in one pass through the proposed apparatus or by the proposed process. In most cases, the proposed arrangements do not remove more than one or two types of contaminates from the fluid or oil being purified or cleaned. Thus, most proposed devices are not "purifiers" in a technological sense and few, if any, currently available apparatus or proposed processes remove the above noted types of contaminates from hydraulic fluid or oil.
Yet a further disadvantage of the proposed arrangements resides in the fact that by virtue of the complex nature of a majority of the existing apparatus, such apparatus tends to lose their efficiency in removing contaminates and maintaining operation over extended periods of time requires constant maintenance attention. An apparatus of this type can generally be classified as centrifugal and vacuum distillation purifiers.
Furthermore, none of the proposed apparatus or processes are designed to remove all types of the above identified contaminates from oil or fluid in single pass, i.e. solid particles to 3.mu., semi-solids, asphaultants, bulk and emulsified water, acids, chlorides, salts, ammonia, and other volatile contaminates.
It is extremely critical that any purification device be capable of removing pounds of solids and semi-solid materials and gallons of water without having to have frequent servicing intervals in order to provide consistent and reliable low maintenance performance; however, in the presently available apparatus, if the solid and liquid contaminate levels are too high on the base oil or liquid to be purified or cleaned, it is necessary for such apparatus to be continuously serviced and the quality of the oil or fluid being cleaned is, at best, marginal.
Thus, by virtue of the reduced overall effectiveness of the proposed apparatus and processes, the oil or a fluid product to be purified or cleaned must be run or processed through the apparatus several times.
None of the proposed processes or apparatus are designed to effect the greatest efficiency of the removing of the solid, semi-solid, bulk and emulsified water, acids, chlorides, salts, ammonia, and other volatile contaminates out of oil or fluid products to be purified or cleaned with a relatively maintenance free operation of the apparatus and, generally, the proposed processes and apparatus frequently become overloaded with contaminates thereby causing either a complete shutdown, a bypassing of portions of the apparatus or a greatly reduced flow rates.
Furthermore, inefficient filter materials do not remove acids and, in some cases, may even remove an additive package from the oils or fluids. Moreover, the proposed filter elements are generally donut shaped pleated filter elements or cartridge filter elements which offer only a thin layer of filter material thereby greatly reducing the solid particle load capacity and promoting the oil or fluid products to be cleaned to channel through the filter elements thereby greatly reducing the time the oil or fluid is in contact with the filter media.